SAN MIGUEL TOPIREJO, Mexico, Sep 26 (IPS) – Verónica Molina, an indigenous Comcaac woman, was first exposed to solar energy in 2016 while traveling to India to train at a communal solar power facility. This later enabled her to participate in the installation of the first solar system and family garden in her community, Desemboque del Seri, in northern Mexico.
Later, she was invited to work on a project on energy, water and food security for indigenous peoples in the semi-arid coastal region of northern Mexico, under the auspices of the Government Council for Humanities, Science and Technology (Conahcyt), launched in 2022.
“We plant vegetables because we have no other seeds to use. They are for self-consumption. With panels we pay less on energy bills and with a garden we save money on vegetables,” says solar activist. told IPS of Desemboque del. Seri, about 1,900 km from Mexico City.
In addition to generating their own electricity, participating families harvest a variety of vegetables from Desemboque and nearby Punta Chueca, the Comcaac region of about 1,200 people on the coast of Sonora state, and one of Mexico’s 69 indigenous peoples who also fish. .
The panels account for 25% to 75% of household consumption, but each of the more than 40 family gardens provides 100 to 200 kg of vegetables every two annual harvest seasons.
The region suffers from marginalization, poverty and disease. On the other hand, the daily solar radiation is 5.9 kWh/㎡ and the annual precipitation is 200 milliliters, making seasonal farming difficult.
The scheme consists of a hybrid system combining solar power and food production, positioned below the panels to capture sun, shade and dew during the night, and is becoming popular in countries such as Germany, Brazil and the United States.
In Mexico, this green technology is still in its infancy, and it is not known how many systems are operating in the country. The Mexican Agrovoltaic Network is preparing a census to confirm their status.
In fact, the agri-food sector’s strategic plan on climate change includes a target for using solar panels for electricity generation.
mitigation
“We realized that they had health, economic, food and land problems. We looked for a comprehensive solution on a budget. They are places with seas or deserts and are extremely dry,” Rodolfo Peón told IPS in Hermosillo. He said. The capital of Sonora.
“We knew agriculture was an alternative to improving diets and providing electricity.” added the researcher from the Department of Industrial Engineering at the public University of Sonora, referring to projects in the Comcáac region.
This is how agricultural development emerged, the only low-cost solution in the region.
The project, funded by approximately $450,000 from Conahcyt’s National Strategic Program, addresses components of energy, water, food, health, biodiversity and territorial defense.
Since 2018, the government has been pushing for internal capacity (sovereignty) to produce food for Mexico’s population of about 130 million people, with little success.
Mexico currently ranks 11th in the world in food production. In the first seven months of this year, China exported more agricultural and food products and purchased more, although the agricultural balance was in surplus, than in the same period last year.
Our country is highly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis, including droughts, rising temperatures, and the spread of pests.
As a result, producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, coffee and other traditional products are already being affected by events such as this year’s extreme water shortages, and will experience even more negative impacts that will impact their quality of life in the long term. , income and rural environment.
Latin America, the country’s second-largest economy, has about 6 million rural production units, 75% of which are less than 5 hectares and only 6% more than 20 hectares, supporting about 20 million people.
Additionally, 79% of electricity generation relies on fossil fuels, followed by wind (7%), solar (4.5%), hydro (4.4%), and nuclear (3.7%). According to the Electric Power Conversion Act, our country must produce 35% of its electricity from alternative energy sources by 2024, but this is a distant goal.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration, which began in December 2018 and will end on October 1, will be divided between the state-run Federal Electricity Commission and Petroleos Mexicanos, which burns gas for power generation. ) put the brakes on the energy transition to strengthen the energy transition. , thus favoring fossil fuels.
The country has agricultural development potential with 20 million hectares of arable land and more than 10,000 megawatts of solar power, 70% of which is in extensive facilities.
hybrid experiment
Six four-metre-high solar panel modules capture solar energy and pass it through a converter before being converted into electricity. The 24 beds protected by them contain crops of pumpkins, lettuce and tomatoes and benefit from protective shade and rainwater and night dew caught on the panels.
This takes place in the Sustainable and Educational Agricultural Development Initiative (Pase), located around the corner from the Center for Practical Education and Research on Animal Production and Health at the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). ).
The center is located in San Miguel Topilejo, a village in the municipality of Tlalpan, south of Mexico City.
At a facility IPS visited, on the other side of a dirt road, cows stand still and graze while solar systems wait for cloudy skies to open and receive the sun’s nutritious rays.
On one side of the plot there are six more outdoor beds whose results can be compared with those protected by panels.
Aarón Sánchez, scholar and site coordinator at the Unam Renewable Energy Institute, explained during an initial tour of the facility that they are studying how crops grow under solar roofs that produce electricity.
He analyzed the performance when there is a transpiration process underneath the crop itself and explained that the modules operate at lower temperatures and higher efficiency.
Launched in 2023, Pase aims to increase the quality and quantity of agricultural products, generate green energy, reduce water consumption and socialize new technologies among farmers.
The Mexico City government’s Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation is also participating in the site, which is equipped with a drip irrigation system and a rainwater collection system with a 145 cubic meter tank to supply temperature and humidity sensors.
A consortium of international institutions from the United States, France, Israel, Kenya, Morocco, and Mexico is also participating.
Back in Sonora, Molina and Peón requested more support to expand the system.
“We could ask for more support as some families in the community did not have access to agricultural gardens. We hope the project can continue,” said a community solar expert.
Peón thinks the results are promising, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
“We would like to see a federal program to support indigenous people. There needs to be a change in the rules of the game for people to generate greater amounts of energy,” he said.
He added, “Large-scale projects are only possible when there is synergy between the energy and agricultural sectors.”
© Interpress Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Interpress Service
